"God, Mia!" Jamie said, wide eyed. "What haven’t you done?"
"Besides barnyard animals and children, not much," she admitted. "I figure you’re only young once, but if you do it right, once is enough."
"Is that it?" Jamie asked.
"No…I had one more little dip in the lesbian pool…last week.
A bunch of us from work went out to this club, and it turns out it’s mostly lesbian. We were all drinking and dancing and having a good time, and this fine-looking redhead asked me to dance. We had a really good time together, and she asked if I’d go home with her. I didn’t have any good reason to say no, so I went."
"Did you enjoy it?" Jamie asked tentatively.
"Oh, yeah!" Mia readily agreed. "This girl had been around the block a few hundred times. She really knew her way around a woman! I’m certain I’ve never had that many orgasms in one day. I could hardly walk the next day at work."
"What does all of that mean to you?" Jamie wondered how Mia could be so secure and carefree about such a tumultuous sexual history. "Doesn’t it make you question your sexuality?"
"Question my sexuality," Mia repeated slowly, tilting her head up, and staring pensively into the blue sky. "I should think that I’ve given pretty good evidence than my sexuality is quite robust."
"I mean your sexual orientation," Jamie insisted. "Doesn’t it ever make you think that you might be gay?"
"No. Why should it?" Mia asked blankly, clearly not understanding why that would even be a question.
"Well, when I saw that I wanted to be with Ryan…that way…I started asking myself if I was gay," she explained.
"I’m not gay, Jamie!" She laughed heartily, looking at her friend with a big smile. "I just love to have sex. I’m primarily attracted to men, but if I meet a hot woman, I can have just as good a time. Actually, in some ways being with women is a lot easier," she admitted.
"How?" Jamie asked, longing for support for her own choice.
"Number one--no birth control. That’s a very big deal for me. Number two--lots of orgasms. Also a big deal," she laughed. Number three--the women I’ve been with have been all about pleasing me. A very, very big deal, as you might have guessed."
"So why not just go lesbian?"
"I find men really hot. I like ‘em big, and strong, and powerful. And there’s nothing I like better than to have a guy show me how much I’m getting to him—they’re like compliant little pets. I gotta tell you, though--I might switch for a woman like Ryan. She is definitely a hottie. And boy, can she kiss!"
"Hey, that reminds me," Jamie scowled. "Now I’m mad that you kissed her after finals. I thought you were just drunk!"
"Oh, I was drunk," Mia laughed. "Just not too drunk to enjoy that sexy little mouth!"
"You have no idea," Jamie sighed, her pique replaced by the delicious thought of Ryan’s lips. "God, Mia, when I wrap my arms around her to kiss her, my knees get so weak I’m afraid I’ll fall. She’s so strong, yet she holds me so tenderly, like she’s afraid I’ll break."
"Sounds heavenly," Mia sighed, smiling sweetly.
"It is, it really is. I know we are going to have fantastic sex together, Mia. I’ve never, ever been this turned on by anyone. She gets aroused so easily, it’s amazing, but she’s been so tender and patient with me—it’s just been wonderful."
"Well, all I’m gonna say is, you’d better keep her busy, or I’m coming after her…and her brother!" she added with a defiant slap of her hand on the wide arm of her chair.
They had lost track of the game even though Jamie kept her eyes on her partner throughout her talk with Mia. She was surprised to see Ryan come trotting over, covered in sweat and sand, looking for a bottle of water. "Did you win?" Jamie asked a little hesitantly.
"Jeez, weren’t you keeping score?"
"Um, we got kinda involved talking, and I lost track."
"Um hmm," she replied, as she narrowed her eyes at the duo. "Let me guess what you were talking about." She put her hand up to her eyes as she closed them for a moment, pseudo-seeking psychic vibrations. "I’m gonna say...sex," she declared. As the blush on Jamie’s cheeks rose past her ears, Ryan leaned over to kiss her gently. "Don’t give away all my secrets, Love," she said, as she tweaked her nose and jogged back to her position.
"Okay, this time we pay attention," Jamie said fervently as the second game began. They kept their focus for less than two minutes before they were analyzing Ryan again, comparing her to the other women in the game, and to the hundreds of women who passed by on the bike path--walking, skating and jogging. "You know, the only thing she doesn’t have is a really ripped stomach. It’s rock hard when you push on it, but there’s just a thin layer of fat that’s kind of cushioning. Still, I think I prefer it that way," Jamie mused. "If she was all hard, I don’t think I’d like sitting on her as much as I do."
"Oooh, I bet it feels great to climb on top of her," Mia moaned.
"I’m drawn to do that like a moth to a flame," Jamie admitted. "I start to kiss her, and within minutes I’m straddling her hips. It’s like you’re sitting on a panther. She’s all coiled energy and power, but she’s just purring like a little kitten."
"Jamie, we’ve gotta stop this. I want your girlfriend as much as you do! Let’s talk about something else--anything else!" she begged.
"Okay, you’re right. Let’s talk about your job."
They tried to concentrate on Mia’s job, but the sweating, laboring bodies of the volleyball players drew them back into a discussion of what constituted the perfect body, and before long Jamie was waxing poetic over the gorgeous body of her partner.
A grinning Ryan, towering over them and blocking the sun, interrupted them. "You weren’t watching, were you?" she demanded, her hands on her hips.
"I had my eyes on your butt the whole time," Jamie replied honestly.
"Me too!" Mia smiled, proud of her powers of concentration, until Jamie knocked the smile off of her face with a punch in the arm.
Ryan just shook her head as she grabbed a bottle of water and ran back to play another game.
They did a little better on the third game but they got sidetracked when Ryan kept turning around to point at Jamie, then at her own eyes, reminding her to pay attention.
Jamie then started to regale Mia with the numerous ways that Ryan teased and played with her. They talked a lot about the ride and the little tricks that Ryan had used to get her up the hills. She talked about how thoughtful Ryan was, setting up camp every night, and went on and on about how wonderful it had been to hold her at night and wake up in her arms in the morning. She was just about to go into how cute she looked in her little bike outfits when Ryan towered over them again. "What’s the score, Jamie?" she demanded, eyes twinkling.
"Um…a whole lot for you and very little for the other side?"
Ryan tilted her head back and drank a bottle of water in one long gulp. Both women ogled the line of her throat and the play of her neck muscles. Oblivious to their admiration, discarding the empty, Ryan smacked her lips together, gazed at her partner and shrugged her shoulders. "That’s about right," she agreed with a wink, running back across the sand to finish the game.
"Hey, speaking of scoring, tell me about all of the ex-lovers you met," Mia asked with a mischievous grin.
"Got an hour?" Jamie replied dryly.
"So what…she just showed up at the ride every year, grabbed a woman and threw her in the tent?"
"No, I think she was a little more moderate than that…at least I hope she was," Jamie laughed. "Actually, it turns out that she trained for each ride with a different group of people. She usually hooked up with someone from the training group, and then slept with her during the ride."
"So…what did they look like? Were they all gorgeous?"
"Thanks." Jamie beamed a smile at her friend.
"You know I think you’re gorgeous," Mia laughed. "Are you her usual type?"
"I think her usual type is the double X chromosome," Jamie said with a smirk. "I have seen her with women from 20 to 50+, thin, chunky, tall, short, brown, black, and white. She claims that she’s more attracted to energy than looks, and I’d have to concur with that. But I’d also have to say that she didn’t always choose nice women."
"Ooh, somebody gave you a hard time?"
"Just a little," Jamie conceded. "One woman was kinda pissy at first, but she apologized later. Another one was a real bitch, though! She sought me out to give me a hard time because Ryan dumped her after the ride was over."
"Did ya deck her?" Mia asked, always loving a good fight.
"Yeah…that’s my style," Jamie agreed. "I loosened a couple of teeth and ripped out a handful of her hair." The smirk now firmly attached to her face belied her statement and, after a second, Jamie continued, "I told her not to dis my lover, and that was that."
"Mmm, I liked the story better the first way," Mia decided.
The imposing shadow of a sweaty, sand-covered woman interrupted the discussion. "Score?" Ryan asked.
"Um...you won?" Jamie guessed.
"That’s not a score, that’s an outcome," she said sternly.
"I...I...I guess I wasn’t paying attention," Jamie admitted with a little downward glance.
"Just for that, you have to go rent me a boogie board so I can cool off and get this sand out of my pants," Ryan said with a grimace, as she tried to shake some of the sand out of her tight suit.
"I’ll rent two, we can go out beyond the breakers, and I’ll help you get that sand out," Jamie teased, as she got up to run over to the rental stand.
Five minutes later they were frolicking in the cool water. Jamie had spent a decent amount of time in the ocean and she was fairly fearless. She was a good swimmer, and she really loved to hop on her boogie board and catch a good wave. Ryan was, of course, perfectly at ease on the ocean. They ranged farther and farther out until they were just beyond the waves, where they sat astride their boards and stared at each other lovingly for a long time. Jamie was perfectly content to just smile at Ryan and watch her sweet face, but they finally maneuvered their boards so they could kiss a bit without falling off. It was a struggle to remain upright, so they turned and rode the waves for a while. After a good hour of play they ran back up to Mia, who was lying on the sand on a large towel. Jamie went to the bar and got them all drinks, along with a club sandwich for Ryan. Her partner had not asked for any food, but she knew that it would be devoured in moments. Ryan’s eyes grew wide as Jamie put the plate in front of her. "I love club sandwiches," she said with delight, as she dove in happily. "Thanks, Jamie."
"I can’t ignore the most important person in my life all day," she said sincerely, as she gave her a little kiss. "You really kicked ass today, didn’t you, Tiger."
"Yeah, we did pretty well," she admitted. "My partner was really good."
"Um hmmm," she nodded. "I’m sure that was the reason."
"She really
was
good," Ryan insisted.
"I’m sure she was, Sweetheart," she agreed. After a beat Jamie asked, "Are there any more sports that you excel at?"
"There might be a couple more that I’ve played a little bit," she said with a twinkle.
"Do you want to tell me about them?"
"Nope," Ryan said as she happily munched away on her sandwich. "I like to keep an air of mystery about myself. I don’t want you to get bored too fast."
"I don’t think I could get bored with you in a million years," Jamie said as she gazed into her eyes with admiration.
"I need to run down to the Venice boardwalk to pick up a couple of things," Ryan said when she finished her snack.
"Yeah," Mia drawled lazily, clasping her unhooked top to her chest as she rolled over to tan the front of her body. "Two dollar sunglasses are pretty hard to come by."
"No, wise-ass," Ryan scoffed, leaning forward to tie her friend’s string bikini. "I need to buy a T-shirt for a friend."
"A T-shirt?" Jamie asked, in a cadence slightly slower than Mia had used. "Honey, who do you know that can’t get a T-shirt in San Francisco?"
"It’s just a…thing…that I do when I travel," Ryan explained. "I’ll run down the bike path and be back before you know it."
"Okay," Jamie said laconically. "We won’t move a muscle."
Jumping to her feet, Ryan surveyed the listless roommates. "I think you can both easily accomplish that goal."
Since they were now both lying on their backs, they jointly watched Ryan’s departing form. Jamie turned to catch Mia holding her head up to get a better look, and she warned her once again, "Off limits, Babe. She’s all mine."
"I wouldn’t dream of it," Mia assured her. "Well, I might dream of it," she amended, "but I wouldn’t actually do it."
"Thanks, Buddy," Jamie smirked, lying down and wriggling around to get comfortable in the sand. "I gotta admit, I’m starting to feel less nervous about tomorrow after talking to you."
"Why are you nervous, Hon?"
"I don’t know," Jamie mused. "I trust her, I love her, and she’s gentle and patient. It doesn’t make logical sense, but I’m…I guess that I’m afraid I’ll disappoint her. I mean, we’ve waited so long—I really feel like there’s a lot of pressure to make tomorrow perfect."